Thursday, January 31, 2013

Thanks for the kudos on my knitting goals, friends! I tell ya, there's nothing like hearing back from your peers to make you realize that you might maybe be serving yourself a nice big slice of crazy-pie, heh. 15,000 yards! 15 pairs of socks!! 12 shawls!!! Ooh, boy, this is going to be good!

One thing having a yardage goal has made me aware of is my leftovers. This is the first time I've kept track of the amount of yarn that actually gets knit up chez Dear. Before this, I tended to think of my output in terms of FOs rather than quantity of stash yarn actually USED.

Up until now, when a project was done, well... as far as I was concerned, so was the yarn. I didn't throw it out, of course, because it was still yarn after all. I don't think you can develop the kind of relationship we as Knitters have with yarn and just THROW IT OUT (unless we're talking about acrylic. But that's a debate for another day). No, I just put it in a bag and sort of, just... forgot about it. The project was finished, the yarn was done. Out of sight, out of mind, and definitely out of the stash.

Here's the thing though. That bag? Where yarn leftovers go to die? Turns out there's, um... a lot of yarn in there. Like, A LOT, a lot.

Does this count as stash?!? I'm already finding it challenging to find projects for the yarn in the stash, should I be trying to find projects for the leftovers as well?

Sunday, January 27, 2013

A couple of years ago I started this "Running for Rhinebeck" thing to save money for my annual pilgrimage trip to the New York Sheep and Wool festival. The idea was that, for every kilometer I ran, I would put a dollar into my Rhinebeck Fund. So I created a little "Running for Rhinebeck" widget thingamabob and smacked it on the sidebar of the blog to keep track of my progress. Whenever I run, I boot up the blog, click on the widget to log onto Ticker Factory, and enter in my distance (and cash). Simple! I figured it would a) encourage me to keep up with my training, and b) give me a fair whack of guilt-free yarn money by the end of the year. Bingo, double-whammy.

Yeah... for the past month and a bit, logging the progress has been... shall we say... difficult? Embarrassing? Not because I haven't been running (I have. Not as much as I probably should, but I have). No, the problem is that I have to face The Blog to do it. The Blog. This space that I haven't contributed to for months. MONTHS. The SHAME. Ugh.

Here's the thing. My evenings are short and my ME time is precious. When faced with the choice between knitting and writing about knitting, I'm going to go with knitting, you know? Hence, no blogging.

But every now and again, I catch myself thinking about a project or a pattern, or hatching some crazy scheme, and I think "this would make a good blog post". So I guess I haven't really gotten this whole blogging thing out of my system after all.

I'll try to fit it in. Somehow.

So what have I been up to lately, you may ask? Well, I've been knitting. And thinking about knitting. And thinking about what I want to DO with my knitting this year.

I love setting myself up to fail goals for myself. They give me a real sense of momentum, of moving forward. Work is hectic (stupid money... grumble grumble), kids (God love 'em) are demanding, and time is in short supply. But making lists makes me feel like I'm doing the things I want to be doing, even if I never ultimately get around to it all.

So! Here are my goals for 2013:

Knit up (drum roll please) 15,000 yards in total. Yup. Just over 13km worth of yarn. I can totally do it. Right?

Knit 12 shawls. To this effect, I've joined the 12 Shawls Forever group on Ravelry. 'Cause, you know... Peers are good :)

Try to use some of the vintage stash. Also in the "Peers are Good" category, I'm participating in Stash and Burn's Use It or Lose It project.

Neon Ski Bonnet, by Lacey Volk. Knit with some Shelridge Farm W4 Soft Touch I purchased at Rhinebeck. In 2008!

Knit all the shipments from the Cookie A Sock Club (oh yeah.. I signed up for the Cookie A sock club!)

Knit an additional 9 pairs of socks, for a total of 15 pairs in the year.

I also have a few stash enhancement goals, but they're more "guidelines" than strict rules. Basically, I want to make sure that more yarn makes its way OUT of the stash than in, heh. 'Cause, yeah... I've got a lot of yarn. Ahem.